OSX and XP with Parallels and/or Boot Camp
Dear all,
I'm still pretty new to Macs. Actually, mine's still waiting for me at home in its box because it has been delivered while I am on a business trip.
My question is probably really stupid, but I did not find an answer searching the forum. I would like to ocasionally be able to run XP on my Mac. I understand that there are 2 ways of running it:
1. Partition the hard-drive and install XP on a separate partition (which means that I have to format the drive completely, i.e. losing all data on the hard-drive)
- does the MBP come with all the CD's to redo a "factory" installation of the OS and all apps that were originally on the drive?
- If not, can I simply burn a backup of the entire contents of the hard-drive onto a DVD and restore it later on the newly partitioned drive?
- what is the minimum drive partition size to run OSX without running into storage problems?
2. Buy and use Parallels
- Does running XP in Parallels require a separate drive partition for XP?
- If not, is it still advisable to have a separate partition?
Thanks a lot for your help!
Best regards,
M.
I'm still pretty new to Macs. Actually, mine's still waiting for me at home in its box because it has been delivered while I am on a business trip.
My question is probably really stupid, but I did not find an answer searching the forum. I would like to ocasionally be able to run XP on my Mac. I understand that there are 2 ways of running it:
1. Partition the hard-drive and install XP on a separate partition (which means that I have to format the drive completely, i.e. losing all data on the hard-drive)
- does the MBP come with all the CD's to redo a "factory" installation of the OS and all apps that were originally on the drive?
- If not, can I simply burn a backup of the entire contents of the hard-drive onto a DVD and restore it later on the newly partitioned drive?
- what is the minimum drive partition size to run OSX without running into storage problems?
2. Buy and use Parallels
- Does running XP in Parallels require a separate drive partition for XP?
- If not, is it still advisable to have a separate partition?
Thanks a lot for your help!
Best regards,
M.
Comments
1. Partition the hard-drive and install XP on a separate partition (which means that I have to format the drive completely, i.e. losing all data on the hard-drive)
No. The bootcamp assistant will allow you to resize the OSX partition without loosing data.
- does the MBP come with all the CD's to redo a "factory" installation of the OS and all apps that were originally on the drive?
It does.
- Does running XP in Parallels require a separate drive partition for XP?
- If not, is it still advisable to have a separate partition?
Parallels uses "filesystem into a file". This means that you do not have to use a separate partition to install XP with Parallels.
I do not know if this is possible to use a dedicated partition with Parallels (it is possible with other virtualization systems, like VmWare on PCs).
1. As far as I know (never tried, only read about it) using Bootcamp, you don't have to format the drive completely. Bootcamp just creates an additional partition leaving your existing partition as it is. Alas, backup of your documents is recommended.
And yes, the MBP comes with all necessary disks to reinstall. And there exist some tools (don't know which ones) to copy your startup disk to another disk and reinstall.
Running Parallels does not require a partition of it's own. the content of the drive of the virtual machine is stored in a file on your Mac partition. Think of Parallels as a normal Application that reads and writes a normal file.
You don't need a separate partition for Parallels, you can store its files wherever you want, if there is enough space. If space is a concern to you, you can store the Parallels files on an external hard drive, so you don't have to carry them around with you when not needen.
I use the VMWare beta (a competitor of Parallels, famous on Win and Linux) with all its files on an external HD with my MBP, and it works fine.
Hope that helps.